I have hardly managed to do anything this week - a very frustrating week exacerbated by a complete need for sleep and lack of energy.

But I dragged myself off the sofa this evening and quickly cut a few stencils with freezer paper, which I then gently ironed onto that piece of 'wet on wet' painted fabric I produced a couple of weeks ago, and which demanded a bit of additional pattern. This paticular piece was just too wet - so all the paint just merged.  I had used Dy Na Flow, a really good quality paint and it does look as though the fabric has been dyed.










So a bit fired up, I decided to use a piece of transfer dye paper that I had already prepared (I had sheets of paper with dried dye painted onto them, which I cut into squares and then restuck to a sheet of A4 photocopy paper - I could have just painted squares, but I did it 'the hard way').

I cut more freezer paper shapes, stuck them to a bit of rather nasty buff coloured  synthetic fabric.  And then applied a hot iron (using sheets of teflon to protect the fabric and the iron) for a long time!  I don't really like this technique - my iron does not get hot enough I think, and the effects are a bit blotchy.

So here the shapes have not been removed.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Transfer or Disperse Dyes.

I love some of the work other people produce with Transfer Dyes (Angie Hughes, or the ladies doing fabulous things at Morley College) but I don't love what I have done in the past.

Part of it may be the frustration of using the domestic iron (the heat press at Morley sounds fantastic - I am green with envy).

But Transfer Dyes (or to be more accurate, Transfer Printing) is on the agenda with the City and Guilds course so last week saw me re-kindling my relationship with Transfer Printing.

Actually, the experience was not so bad, though I cannot imagine how I can use this technique to produce a consistent piece of 1m of fabric.


Because I have used this technique before I tried something a bit different.  I crunched the paper before painting it.  I used Leaf Green and Wine Red (shown below).


Then I cut the papers into strips and 'wove' them.


Then I wrestled with the domestic iron!  Actually the results, though not consistent, are not so bad (that is the printed fabric on the right hand side).  I used a teflon sheet under the paper when I ironed it and protected the iron with parchment paper.  But as you can see, although I was convinced that I had used constant pressure, the is a gradient of effect on the fabric.